The Narrator (52 page)

Alone, I am lost in the nightmare now. We won. We won. I’m turning into a tower. I am growing vaster than the mountains, my head rising far above the world, staring down at the bare ground by my feet miles across miles away, I am becoming transparent to the darkness of the surrounding space, everything around me is intense light, and I am rolling over retching transfixed and suffering, I am darkness and empty space.

*

A musical voice from the doorway suffused with diaphanous white sunlight. “Sosska! Is that you?”

Orvar stands in the next room, smiling politely at her. The woman enters from outside, light streaming around her veiled face.

“
Mother!”

“Sosska, my darling! How changed you are.” She lifts her veil and takes Saskia by the shoulders, lightly kisses her cheek. The firm grip of her fingers is palpable even through Saskia’s stiff clothing.

“Are you well?”

Saskia only stares.

“You’ve been away so long! And never a word from you ...” she glances at Orvar, “We were worried, night and day.”

Saskia stares.

“I won’t press you. This campaign
has
changed you.”

She stands back from her daughter.

“Is Low with you?”

“
Low?!”

“Yes, that’s what I said. Is he with you?”

Saskia stares.

“He didn’t mention me, did he?” She glances again at Orvar, whose polite smile grows firmer. “I believe I said he could be discreet.”

“What are you talking about?!”

“Please, Sosska, is he alive?”

“... He was when I last saw him.”

She looks closely at her daughter, “Where? Where did you see him last?”

“I left him in the interior. He was useless—practically a traitor.”

“What?! Low, a traitor? Nonsense. Was he hurt?”

“No.”

“Why did you leave him? Why in the world would you leave him?”

Saskia is staring incredulously. “What—what is this?”

“Oh how
could
you do something like that?” Madame Mauvudza stamps her foot irritably.

“What is this? Why are you asking me about that Low?”

“Well, I’m sure he’s alive. He’s always been so clever.”

“What do you know about him?”

“My dear, we’re to be married. Try to understand ... Really, when you look at me like that ... I met him in Tref, when he came through to join his unit. The man at Yashnik had been stationed in Port Conget when you passed through, and I chartered the ship as soon as I could. We’ve only just arrived.”

She sighs wearily.

“And we had thought you were still up north. Oh, my dear, how drawn you are. But, perhaps, in a few months, when I’ve recovered my strength, we can all go in together. Or, no, but you and Orvar can go, can’t you? If he hasn’t made his way back on his own by then?”

“Recovered—what’s that you say, recovered your strength?”

Ohra Mauvudza’s open lips bend upward in a meagre smile. “Oh—well, these are rather loose clothes, and the light in here is bad.”

She holds her hands up in the air by her shoulders and turns her body a little sideways, glancing down at the slight, uncharacteristic convexity of her abdomen, and then back up at her daughter.

“You see?” she says, placing her hand on the spot. “I’m not in the slightest embarrassed, but I wanted him to know right away. Now the war is over, he’ll be free to return with me, won’t he? I don’t imagine his commanding officer can keep him here that much longer—although, come to think of it, his commanding officer might perform the marriage himself? Don’t they have that authority?”

“His commanding officer is dead!
Everyone in the unit is dead!”
Saskia shouts.

Her mother blanches.

“You said you saw him alive!”

“He’s dead! He’s
dead!”

“
You said you saw him alive!”

“... He must be dead by now. No one can live in there.”

“Sosska, I’ve been told there
are
people living there.”

No response.

“Isn’t that true?” she presses.

“Yes, yes, but they’re all insane. And so will he be, by now, if he still lives.”

“
He
won’t go mad,” her mother says. “
You
didn’t. You escaped. It can be done. Perhaps you and Orvar will go soon, and help him. You
must
help him if you can.”

Saskia drops jerkily onto a bench by the window, her eyes averted.

“Sosska, you should rest. We all must rest, and be strong,” she says, stepping outside. She doesn’t look up at the mountains tufted with fog. Orvar strides past her, to fetch the carriage she insisted they bring with them on the ship. He brings it forward, harness jingling.

“Your sister is a good soldier. When the family is back together, she will teach you to be a good soldier, too. She and your father, both.”

As the carriage pulls up to the porch, she is distracted, her hand on top of her abdomen, listening down into her stomach toward the baby.

Michael Cisco is the author of novels
The Divinity Student
(Buzzcity Press, 1999, winner of the International Horror Writers Guild award for best first novel of 1999),
The Tyrant
(Prime, 2004),
The San Veneficio Canon
(Prime, 2005),
The Traitor
(Prime, 2007),
The Narrator
(Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2010),
The Great Lover
(Chomu Press, 2011),
Celebrant
(Chomu Press, 2012), and
MEMBER
(Chomu Press 2013). His short story collection,
Secret Hours
, was published by Mythos Press in 2007.

His fiction has appeared in
Leviathan III
(Wildside, 2004) and
Leviathan IV
(Night Shade, 2005),
The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases
(Bantam, 2005),
Cinnabar's Gnosis: A Tribute to Gustav Meyrink
(Ex Occidente, 2009),
Last Drink Bird Head
(Ministry of Whimsy, 2009),
Lovecraft Unbound
(Dark Horse, 2009),
Phantom
(Prime, 2009),
Black Wings I
(PS Press, 2011),
Blood and Other Cravings
(Tor, 2011),
The Master in the Cafe Morphine: A Homage to Mikhail Bulgakov
(Ex Occidente Press, 2011),
The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities
(Harper Voyager, 2011),
The Weird
(Tor, 2012), and elsewhere. His scholarly work has appeared in
Lovecraft Studies
,
The Weird Fiction Review
,
Iranian Studies
and
Lovecraft and Influence
.

Michael Cisco lives and teaches in New York City.